Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation: "Full Effort for Labor Flexibility and Reenactment of the Serious Accident Punishment Act"

Focus on Building Public Consensus for Labor Market Flexibility
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Son Kyung-sik, Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation, has made labor market flexibility and the re-legislation of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (Serious Accidents Punishment Act) his main focus for this year. He plans to push for the dismissal of low performers, reform of the wage system, and request a postponement of the application of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. Instead, various preventive measures will be supported for small and micro enterprises.

On the 29th, Chairman Son held a press conference at the Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, where he announced this year’s business plan centered on these points. He said, "Last year, the opposition party’s forced revision of the Labor Union Act caused great concern among companies, but the business community made every effort to strongly appeal for the suspension of the legislation, and the president exercised his veto power to prevent the worst-case scenario. This year, we will devote all our efforts to making the rigid working hours system more flexible and promoting supplementary legislation for the Serious Accidents Punishment Act."

Riding on the momentum of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s veto of the Labor Union Act amendment in November last year, he expressed his intention to focus more on labor market flexibility. Chairman Son emphasized, "For companies to respond to industrial structural changes such as digital technological innovation and to secure global competitiveness, labor modernization that improves our outdated labor laws and systems is essential. It is important to build a social consensus that such labor reforms are not only beneficial to companies but also bring balanced benefits to all citizens, including domestic demand expansion and job creation."

The Korea Employers Federation plans to gather opinions from the industrial field and form a national consensus through case studies of advanced countries. They also plan to actively promote the necessity of labor reform through forums and other means. While demanding reasonable labor movements from labor groups, they also aim to create a cooperative labor-management relationship to prevent illegal acts such as wage arrears and unfair labor practices by companies.

Regarding the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, which has been expanded to workplaces with 5 to fewer than 50 employees since the 27th, they also pledged to respond with full force. This law stipulates that business owners and others can be sentenced to imprisonment for more than one year or fined up to 1 billion won in the event of serious accidents such as death. They argue that applying it to more than 830,000 small and micro enterprises with fewer than 50 employees could exacerbate side effects such as chronic labor shortages, financial difficulties, business closures, and worker unemployment.

Chairman Son stated, "The Serious Accidents Punishment Act should not focus solely on punishment but should be supplemented as soon as possible to focus on accident prevention. While striving for re-legislation, we will create an organization to support industrial accident prevention activities for small-scale enterprises that are unprepared for the Serious Accidents Punishment Act."

The Korea Employers Federation plans to operate a ‘Serious Accident Prevention Support Center’ (tentative name). The core idea is to support small and medium-sized enterprises in building their own safety management capabilities and to carry out serious accident prevention activities in cooperation with the government and partner companies. Specifically, for small and medium-sized enterprises, they will provide △ legal consultation and consulting related to industrial accident prevention △ distribution of industry-specific manuals and guides △ safety capability enhancement training.

Support at the large enterprise level will also be promoted. The business community will lead government meetings and work to discover and spread excellent win-win cooperation models. Additionally, they plan to carry out policy activities related to revitalizing the service industry and emphasize the need to improve regulations such as the designation system for large business groups and the prohibition of telemedicine.

Son Kyung-sik, Chairman of the Korea Employers Federation (left), is attending the New Year's meeting with reporters held at the Korea Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 29th, answering questions from reporters. Photo by Jo Yong-jun jun21@